Posts Tagged ‘Judy Blume’

If men could menstruate … clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much. … Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammad Ali’s Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields — “For Those Light Bachelor Days.”

Gloria Steinem

IF men could menstruate, I wouldn’t have to frickin’ BEG my goddam gynecologist for a total hysterectomy.

He’d have KNOWN, instinctively, to just go ahead and yank my plumbing from my gaping C-sectioned abdomen after he extracted the TWO-FOOT-LONG infant from my womb seven years ago.

Perhaps, IF men could menstruate, Dr. Doogie Houser would have — if not empathy — surely, SYMPATHY, for the fact that I SUFFER from retrograde menstruation and Stage IV endometriosis.

Perhaps, IF every month, in addition to experiencing a two-week crimson tide, Dr. Doogie ALSO had menstrual waste forced back up through his fallopian tubes to spill out into his abdominal cavity, he would give me the radical overhaul for which I beg.

Perhaps, IF Dr. Doogie had to endure just one ‘Butt-Kink’, as I fondly call it, wherein all of that menstrual waste material adhering to his intestines and sphincter feel as if someone has yanked them UP and held TAUT for a minute or two — perhaps, THEN, (after he is able to catch his breath and let every muscle in his very body relax) — THEN — he GLADLY would extract my female parts.

Instead, even before I can finish my HYSTER-ical plea, he is already shaking his head, saying, “No. No. No. You’re too young.”

Why is it men are all-too happy to stuff shit IN to your nether regions,

but they never wanna take anything OUT?

My only consolation: I think Dr. Doogie’s a Buddhist. I pray he comes back as a WOMAN. And then to another man.

Until then, I’m stuck with another 15-20 years of menstruation.

And that’s another thing that pisses me off: Shouldn’t it be ‘WOMENstruation’?

For crissake, even on that, WE get the GORY and THEY get the GLORY?

Recently, my pre-pubescent daughter asked me, “Mommy, if you had THREE WISHES, what would they be?”

Without hesitation, I fired off:

#1 That every man in the world would POOF! into a woman.

#2 That I would become the HEARTLESS BITCH GYNECOLOGIST to those new women.

#3 That Sir James Dyson would invent an affordable VagiVac so all the REAL WOMEN of the world could frickin’ suck out their own uteri in the comfort of their own homes whenever they damn-well feel like it.

Sir James Dyson with his VAGIVAC prototypes

Okay, well, maybe those three wishes were what I said in my head. Maybe I said ‘world peace’ to m’kid. Maybe. (I hope.)

But don’t get me wrong. I didn’t refrain from blurting out my REAL three wishes because I didn’t want to curse in front of the kid.

I want to protect her from THE CURSE and all of its nasty, negative effects, in general. I want to protect her from the visceral urge to slice up every male living thing on the face of the earth every 28 days.

How I DREAD my babygirl’s imminent entrance to womanhood! How my heart breaks at the thought of the loss of her happy, innocent, worry- and pain-free childhood. How sorry I am that she is a SHE; how sorry I am that she must heft the burden of being female.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I don’t necessarily hate womanhood. On the contrary, I know I was made a woman because women are the stronger of the sexes; I don’t care what anybody thinks or says. Hell, if The Big Guy thought for a millisecond that MEN could handle childbirth and MENses, He’d’ve given the Grand Prize to THEM. I’m just pissed that guys have all the fun and get all the breaks — in every way, shape and form.

And don’t even try to sell me that SHIT about how men are the ones who have to bring home the bacon and support a family, ’cause I’m not buyin’.

THIS?

THIS is what my daughters have to look forward to in their lives?

It’s not bad enough that my daughter must ENDURE the curse of THE CURSE?

I want my girls to grow up to be STRONG WOMEN. I want them to know that they can handle ANYTHING that life throws their way. Unfortunately, that monthly visit from Aunt Flo is the one thing that many women, strong or not, simply CANNOT escape. Every month, women are PLAGUED with debilitating cramps, bloating, demon-channeling capabilities and LEAKAGE.

Included in my nightly prayers (and, yes, The Viv fuckin’ PRAYS) are the makers of Midol and 800mg Motrin. They, at least, can get me through the bloats and cramps and the feeling that my uterus is gonna tear through m’taint and hit the floor.

Am I to believe that we can build Great Walls and pyramids, put men (why, of course) on the moon, store 5,000 songs on a device no bigger that a pinky, sew without thread, live with artificial hearts, balloon boobs to a realistic trip-G, grow new hair, brace for perfect, pearly teeth and block sweat from staining our pits — but we can’t seem to figure out a better way to stanch the red flood than to shove a wad of cotton up the HOOHAW?

REALLY?

THERE’S GOTTA BE A BETTER WAY FOR WOMEN TO CONQUER THE CURSE!

IF men could menstruate,

we’d’ve had a curse-cure

LONGAGO.

How do they keep hemophiliacs from leaking to death?

Why can’t we just use THAT?

Or, how ’bout a giant styptic pencil?

IF men were just a wee bit quicker on the uptake, they’d realize that the quicker they cure the curse, the quicker they get 12 extra BONUS weeks to hound us for sex.

Now that I’ve purchased a few ‘bralets’ and some of that amazing anti-perspirant for my blossoming nine-year-old babe, my next purchases, no doubt, will be Pre-Teen Midol and a box of maxi pads (with WINGS! of course).

How I cringe at the memory of my middle school maxi pad days.

Ladies, is there anything more disgusting than having to run the mile in PE with a freakin’ saturated king-sized pillow between your legs?

THE HORROR!

True, pads have come a long way in terms of size and absorbancy since the early 80s, thank Gawd, but I feel so sorry for the young girls who have to wear them. Poor things. But, then again, what choice do they really have? TAMPONS? For elementary schoolers? Ugh.

I hopped online in search of SOMETHING — ANYTHING — better than pads and tampons for my babygirl — must she REALLY ride the cotton pony all her life?

As it turns out, the pad and the tampon really ARE the best out there.

I just can’t imagine trying to instruct my child in the proper folding technique, let alone the INSERTION and REMOVAL, of the DIVA CUP, and I would rather have her swallow a box of DAMP RID than tell her that she should shove a goddam SEA SPONGE up her little ‘tookie’.

The DIVA CUP

The Jam Sponge

“How does a Jam Sponge work?”

“You simply squash it into your vagina and it soaks up the blood.”

(A shoe-in for the The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.)

No Way in HELL.

So, for now,

until Sir Dyson’s

VAGIVAC

hits Wal-Mart shelves,

pads it is.

Since the kid’s got booblets, I suppose it’s time for her to read it. It got me through that God-awful stage. It sure as hell made me happy that the ‘Teeange Softies’ I had to wear didn’t require a belt, though. At least my Kotex had tape strips to adhere to my Days of the Week undergutchies.

Another thing I appreciated about Blume’s book was the fact that the main character’s mother didn’t really make a major ordeal and alert the presses when her daughter gets her period. She sniffles a bit, and says, “My God! You’ve really got it. My little girl!” And then she goes to get the ‘equipment’ in the other room. No big whoop.

My own mother wept with pride at my first flow. She couldn’t stop hugging me and kissing me and telling me how proud of me she was (as if I had anything to do with it). And then at the dinner table that night, she beamed and proudly announced, “Daddy, our baby girl got her period today! She’s not a little girl anymore! Now she’s becoming a young WOMAN!” I thought my younger brother was gonna puke. My dad, God bless’im, without really making eye contact, mumbled something like, “Did ya, honey? Well, say now… how ’bout that? Do ya feel all grown up now?” (No, Dad, not really. Actually, I feel like total CRAP. And now, lucky me, I get to feel like this once a month? Me? I feel like a buck-fi’ty. Yippee.)

I know a woman whose family has a Menstruation Tradition, for crissake. When one of their girls gets stricken, one of the other women of the family — NOT the mother, though — presents the child with a fuckin’ TIARA to celebrate her induction into the Sisterhood of Stained Pants. Evidently, it’s this big family secret, and no one else is allowed to see your tiara. When the girl gets her period every month, and she is feeling like a heifer in heat, she is to go to her room, place the tiara atop her head, and look in the mirror and admire the beauty, the regality of being a woman. I guess the crown is supposed to make her feel better about the monthly sloughing of the lining of her uterus and cellular debris and the fact that she secretly wants to take a crucifix to her vagina a la Regan to take her mind off the pain.

I can say with the fiercest conviction that there willl be no Catamenia Crown for my kid.

There will be no celebration, no ‘Welcome to Womanhood’ festivities, no ’embrace-and-honor-your-sacred-feminine’ speech — no way, no how.

A FUNERAL to mourn my baby’s lost childhood, maybe. But menses, my friends, is no cause for celebration. (unless you’ve been worried about that one-night stand for the last three weeks, that is)

I mean, the kid’s not STACKED, or anything, but she’s definitely got little buds a’blossom.

She’s in that awkward stage between frilly, little-girl-undershirts and the flat-padded-training-bra. In fact, last year, I had to DRAG my poor, little, ‘precociously-pubescent’ 3rd grader to JC Penney‘s to buy Teenform’s ‘My First Bra’ (which, by the by, is no longer made). A salesclerk led us to a frou-frou, Pepto-pink display of little-girl LINGERIE. She daintily held up a TINKERBELL ‘bralet’. Her expression read ‘Isn’t this just the cutest lil’ thing you’ve ever seen?’

SERIOUSLY?

Lady, you want me to buy a bra…BRALET for my kid with a Disney fairy decal spanning the distance of her tiny boob…lets ???

I think not.

I’m sorry, but I taste a bit of bile when I think of WALT DISNEY having any involvement whatsoever with my daughter’s developing breasts.

In all fairness to Walt, my true gripe did not stem from his apparent pedophilia. Simply, I could NOT get over the fact that I needed to buy my precious 3rd-grade baby a TRAINING BRA!

Painfully, I clearly remember my own mother draggin’ ME downtown to Brody’s department store to try on my first Teenforms. (For the record, most of my emotional baggage was packed on that first horrific foray into ‘WOMANHOOD’.)

But I was in FIFTH GRADE — studying integers and fractions!

My budding baby’s barely gotta good pencil grip, for Eve’s sake!

To boot, I’d wager my kid could barely DECODE, let alone ultimately see as GOSPEL, the text of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret – THE Rite-of-Passage-Into-Womanhood BIBLE of my generation, which was covertly passed from girl to girl, flat to barely-buxom, under desk and bus seat for nearly two years of elementary school.

What’s NEXT?

What fresh hormones-in-a-hurry HELL will I haft’a buy in FOURTH GRADE?!

The Training THONG?

Barbie pasties?

It seems, these days, our little girls are blossoming at a much earlier age — statistics report as early as 7 years old!

Why, they haven’t even had the chance to BE little girls! (Actually, I think I’m starting to understand the need for a Tinkerbell bralet now.) But, at the tender age of seven? My heart breaks for these girls who are condemned with ‘Central Precocious Puberty‘.

Whether SassyMama likes it or not, the puberty train’s arriving early, and there’s not slowin’er down.

The other day I sat my daughter down for my tutorial entitled,

“Disguising The Boob-Scratch“.

She’s a fast-learner. No problem whatsoever with the ‘Bait & Scratch’ (which relies heavily on the assumption that she’ll be surrounded by really dumb 4th-grade boys), but I think she still needs some practice in refining her ‘RELEASE’ technique in the tricky-but-satisfying-and-well-worth-the-risk-of-being-seen-by-dumb-fourth-grade-boys ‘Pencil Drop’ maneuver. She needs to focus on releasing the pencil so that it lands within a 5″ radius of her right shoe when she is seated at a school desk. (fyi: as a ‘righty’, using the left hand/left foot combo is an expert maneuver; a left hand/right footer – suicide!)

Bought my girl her first anti-perspirant this week, too. Thank God she won’t have to ‘Smell Like Teen Spirit’.

See, now that our girls are maturing earlier, ‘teen’ just doesn’t fit the market demographic anymore.

Now we have ‘Degree Girl’ — with pink glitter (for today’s gal who stinks but just can’t give up the twinkly-sparkly–rainbow-fairy-dust -phase of childhood)!

At the projected female maturation rate, Secret and FDS plan to launch their toddler lines within two years (powder-scent, only).

So, my daughter is padded and pore-plugged and ready for the next stop on the Puberty Express (the parent company of B.O.).

Next stop?

HAIR.

The discovery of it, the abundance of it, and finally, the removal of it. Yippee.

Ridding herself of unwanted body hair soon will be a topic of discussion, if not a demonstration in the fine art of depilation.

My challenge during that little lecture will be in masking my grimace (and requisite cuss) at the sharp, stinging pain of nickin’ the SHIT out’a my own legs. You see, I recently switched from using a ‘man-razor’ (Gillette Mach 3, thank you) to a chick-shaver. I have used a man-razor since middle school because it’s the only weapon strong enough to hack through my living-proof-that-man-evolved-from-ape legs.

So WHY switch NOW? Not by choice, I assure you. I was desperate!

I hadn’t shaved in over a week.

I had a pretty dense, tangled thicket-thing goin’ on, but I had a doctor’s appointment the next day, and was pretty sure she wouldn’t buy my ‘horse-hair chaps’ charade. But because Wal-Mart had the blades locked up in the Fort Knox display case with not one, but two, Beefeaters on guard, and there wasn’t a ‘guest services’ blue-vest-wearin’ clerk in the entire store — I had to grab a pack a’ disposables and git out’a Dodge. I do remember choosing the package based on how many blades it contained — it was gonna take at least 5 of the 7 just to reach my undergrowth. I grabbed a pack o’ Shicks. I dunno. They’re pink. With pretty flowers.

I figure the cutesy, innocuous shaver may allay any fear my child may have about shaving her legs.

After all, nothin’ says ‘Welcome to Womanhood’ like wielding a feminine blade with the sharpness of slivered chert.

My hope is that she will be so mesmerized by the girly-floral decor of the wicked little razor that she won’t even blink when she sees rivulets of her own lifeblood streaming down her little legs in her first attempt.

But then, that brings me to Band-Aids.

The girl screams, seizes with fright and then runs from the room when she spies a Band-Aid in my hand for one of her ‘boo-boos’.

How the HELL will she react when she sees me comin’

with the chicky-chert-Schick?

I think later, much later, I’ll fill’er in on the fact that as women age, their body hair becomes thicker and denser, akin to the horn of the rhino — threatening to take over her face, her ass AND her booblets.